Israel’s formal response to the onslaught of criticism it has absorbed over its winter military campaign in Gaza finally arrived late last month. And though the report is exhaustive, its reply to the hail of human rights and war crimes charges has essentially boiled down to one crucial point:
Intent.
The 160-page Israeli analysis dismisses out of hand the more controversial claims of human rights organizations, which have accused Israel of using Palestinian children as human shields, destroying property indiscriminately and purposefully targeting populated areas during the three-week-long operation.
At the same time, it offers a systematic and full-throated justification for some of the more sensational events of the war, among them the use of incendiary white phosphorous and the shelling of the house of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, the well-known and widely admired Palestinian gynecologist working in Israel whose three daughters were killed in the bombardment.
In describing those and many other incidents, and addressing the crucial issue of civilian deaths — nearly 1,000 by the Palestinians’ count, 300 by Israel’s — the report relies heavily on the language of international law. Though the civilian causalities are described as “unfortunate” and as “tragedies,” the Israeli military said it never intended to kill innocent people, and so its actions fall within international law.
That, says the report, released by Israel’s Foreign Ministry on July 29, is the crucial distinction between the actions of Israel and of Hamas, the Palestinian political faction and militia group that controls Gaza. Hamas’s rockets — fired into Israel for many years prior to Israel’s incursion into Gaza last December and January — were the proximate cause cited by Israel for its campaign.
“Hamas’s deliberate attacks against Israel’s civilian population violated [international] standards, and this constituted a violation of international law,” the report asserts. “The IDF’s attacks directed against Hamas military targets, despite their unfortunate effects on Gaza’s civilian population, did not.”
That said, the report also reveals that there are still 100 outstanding complaints being investigated and 13 criminal probes yet to be resolved.
According to Gerald Steinberg, head of the watchdog group NGO Monitor, which tracks and rebuts the accusations leveled at Israel by human rights organizations, this is an unprecedented attempt by the military to fight groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on their own turf.
These groups ground their frequent allegations of war crimes by referring to the internationally agreed-upon tenets of warfare. Steinberg said it is only now that the military has joined the Foreign Ministry in its attempt to counter these claims by making use of these same tenets.
“This is an attempt to take that weapon away from them,” Steinberg said. He added, however, that this was “a very late response” in what he saw as an “ongoing political war.”
Many observers saw the report, too, as a pre-emptive response to the investigation being conducted for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights by Richard Goldstone, a generally respected former South African Supreme Court justice whose own report also will include his findings regarding alleged war crimes by Hamas.
Goldstone’s findings are expected soon. But Israel has refused to cooperate with the Goldstone probe. And for the first time, Israel also refused to speak or communicate with international human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as they conducted their investigations of Israel and Hamas during and after the Gaza campaign.
That stance reflects a clear hardening in Israel as a plethora of human rights charges over the years related to Israel’s conduct in the West Bank and Gaza have begun to hit home. In recent years, the International Criminal Court in the Hague has ruled Israel’s self-described security fence illegal in areas where it departs from the so-called Green Line separating Israel from the Palestinian areas it won from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. Some of Israel’s generals, meanwhile, have been warned not to travel to Europe, where they potentially could face war crimes charges lodged with national law enforcement authorities there on the basis of a controversial legal doctrine known as universal jurisdiction.
Steinberg and other defenders of Israel’s conduct deem such legal actions “lawfare” — a new way to assail Israel’s fundamental legitimacy, they assert, that requires a new, hard-nosed response. Human rights groups say that they are applying to Israel only the same standards they apply everywhere else, including to Hamas, which the groups have also accused of war crimes.
During the Gaza campaign, Israel’s use of white phosphorus shells was an especially intense flashpoint of contention. Israel at first firmly denied using the weapons, whose contents burn deep into human tissue for sustained periods after initial contact. After press reports and photos documented shells with markings confirming they were white phosphorus weapons manufactured in the United States, Israel acknowledged their use but said they were not deployed as anti-personnel weapons, a violation of international law. Instead, Israel Defense Forces officials said, they were used only for illuminating areas and setting off protective smokescreens — uses allowed under international law.
In this new report, the military details for the first time how two types of weapons that use white phosphorous were deployed during the incursion. Contrary to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, Israel claims that the munitions were fired only at “open, unpopulated areas.” In the report, Israel acknowledges the “unfortunate reality” that white phosphorous hurt civilians and property, but justifies the phosphorous’s use by pointing out that it was “not designed or intended to be lethal or destructive.”
Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, pointed to Israel’s description of one episode — an IDF attack at an elementary school sited at the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency headquarters in Beit Lahia— as belying these claims. It was, he said, emblematic of how the report “pushed aside any level of responsibility.”
The report describes projectiles filled with white phosphorous that “unfortunately may have landed at the school.” But Garlasco pointed to photos of Palestinian civilians fleeing for safety as the school burns under a hale of shells, depicting, he said, a far more clear and catastrophic event than the report’s tentative language implies.
“I don’t really understand their semantics,” Garlasco said.
The same argument of intentionality is used in the infamous story of Abuelaish, the prominent doctor who has been involved in coexistence projects in Israel. Two tank shells were fired at his house, killing his three daughters. In the report, the incident is described in great detail. Israeli soldiers were responding to sniper shooting from a house adjacent to Abuelaish’s, the report states. When they saw what was characterized as “several figures moving suspiciously” at the Abuelaish house, they assumed they were dealing with spotters who were directing the snipers. After waiting 20 minutes, they shelled the house. When the soldiers heard screams coming from within, they ended the bombardment, according to the report.
These were “tragic deaths,” the report acknowledges, but the soldiers are absolved of any wrongdoing, as they “intended only to respond to a perceived threat, and in no way breached the Law of Armed Conflict.”
Overlaying these episodes is concern among some critics that Israel has quietly instituted a shift in military rules of engagement to de-prioritize protection of civilians during combat. Analysts Avishai Margalit and Michael Walzer cited a 2005 academic paper by Asa Kasher, who is an adviser to the IDF, and Major General Amos Yadlin, head of Israeli military intelligence, in which the two men stated bluntly, “Where the state does not have effective control of the vicinity, it does not have to shoulder responsibility for the fact that persons who are involved in terror operate in the vicinity of persons who are not.”
In a recent New York Review of Books article, Walzer and Margalit voiced concern that IDF policy in Gaza had been influenced by these views from senior level officials. In a subsequent letter to the editor, Hebrew University political scientist Shlomo Avineri, admitted the Israeli army was “less than meticulous” in protecting Palestinian civilians during the Gaza operation. But he said it was “preposterous” to expect, as the authors do, that Israeli soldiers’ care for the safety of Palestinian civilians should equal that of its care for the safety of Israeli civilians in a situation where they are, for example, seeking to rescue Israeli civilians held hostage by Hezbollah.
The IDF, for its part, denies any shift toward the doctrine advocated by Kasher and Yadlin.
Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s lead Jerusalem researcher who put together her organization’s detailed and critical report on Israel’s actions during the war, said that intention, in the end, is beside the point. The new report held no new revelations for her.
For her, it does not provide any more of a context for what she calls the “reckless decisions” of Israeli soldiers and commanders to use what she concluded were imprecise and needlessly destructive weaponry in densely populated areas.
“Whether they intended or not to hurt civilians is not something I can know,” Rovera said. “But at some point, absolutely recklessly dangerous behavior even when you know better becomes intentional.”
Contact Gal Beckerman at beckerman@forward.com.
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This is a good article, and I recommend everybody read at least the summary of the http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/E89E699D-A435-491B-B2D0-017675DAFEF7/0/GazaOperation.pdf Israeli government report themselves.
The best argument I've seen laying out Israel's war crimes was by George Bisharat, professor of law at Hastings College, who has often debated Judea Pearl. I don't know if it's available to non-subscribers, but these are my notes (not a cut and paste of the entire article):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2009
Israel is committing war crimes; Hamas's violations are no justification for Israel's actions, George E. Bisharat,
The UN charter gives states the right to retaliate against "armed attack", has evolved to non-state actors, and arguably gives that right to Hamas. But minor border skirmishes are not armed attacks, because if it were, states could exploit them to launch wars of aggression, as Israel seems to be doing. Firing Kassam rockets on civilians are war crimes, but not "armed attack." During the same period, Israeli forces killed 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza. On 19 June 2008, Hamas and Israel began a 6-month truce; neither complied perfectly. Israel refused to ease the siege.
"Hamas permitted sporadic rocket fire -- typically after Israel killed or seized Hamas members on the West Bank, where the truce did not apply." Israel broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rockets; Israel killed 5 more Palestinians.
"Israel cannot claim self-defense against this escalation, because it was provoked by Israel's own violation."
Israel used American-made F-16s and Apache helicopters to destroy mosques, the education and justice ministries, a university, prisons, courts and police stations. Civilian employees of the Hamas government deserve the protections of international law.
Israel controls Gaza's coast, airspace and borders, and so is an occupying power with legal duty to protect Gaza's civilian population, which the 18-month siege violated.
Bisharat also had an article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/opinion/04bisharat.html
April 4, 2009, Israel on trial, George Bisharat.
Hamas' rocket attacks are war crimes, but don't excuse Israel. The evidence suggests Israel committed 6 offenses:
So now we are anti-Semites if we insist that every country, including Israel, obey international laws -- laws that were passed to prevent another Holocaust.
Now we are anti-Semites if we say Israel should not have killed Dr. Izzeldin Abu el-Aish's daughters.
OK, I'm an anti-Semite.
One critical point made by Bisharat deserves repeating:
Israel broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rockets; Israel killed 5 more Palestinians.
"Israel cannot claim self-defense against this escalation, because it was provoked by Israel's own violation."
There is an inaccuracy in the article. Author has confused Internatinal Criminal Court with the International Court of Justice, two very different institutions.
"That stance reflects a clear hardening in Israel as a plethora of human rights charges over the years related to Israel’s conduct in the West Bank and Gaza have begun to hit home. In recent years, the International Criminal Court in the Hague has ruled Israel’s self-described security fence illegal in areas where it departs from the so-called Green Line separating Israel from the Palestinian areas it won from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War."
Norman, how to you respond to typical claims that the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip was met not with peace, but with rocket fire? Land for peace is an old formula that seems not to have worked in this case. What exactly do the Gazans want from Israel besides withdrawal from Gaza, which they have already achieved? Moreover, if your argument is that the Gazans want an open border, then how is Israel supposed to defend itself against terrorism? Surely you do not condone attacks against Israeli civilians as "justification" for any Israeli military actions against Hamas, any more than you would condone the 9/11 attacks as "justification" for U.S. actions abroad, as some far-left critics of the United States and its policies have done. In either case, innocent civilians are being killed. Moreover, you seem to define Hamas's actions as appropriate given "the right to retaliate against 'armed attack,'" but surely you do not mean to say that rocket fire into densely populated civilian areas is OK. I do not take it that you would say "an eye for an eye" is a justifiable policy where your fellow Jews are concerned. Or do you deny that you have a special connection to Jews anywhere around the world that you do not have to Palestinians?
My response, as Bisharat and other international lawyers (many of them Jewish) have said, is that Israel never withdrew from Gaza.
They maintained control of the Gaza borders -- not just the borders with Israel, but the borders with Egypt, the coast, and the airspace above Gaza. They used this control to impose a siege on Gaza, cutting off food, medical supplies, power, and materials needed to run the economy.
In addition, as Bisharat said, the Israelis continued to kill Palestinians.
If you want peace, and you want the other side to stop attacking you with rockets or whatever, you don't impose a blockade and kill them (including innocent civilians like the Galaya family).
Hamas did stop firing rockets, until Israel raided the Gaza strip on Nov. 4 and killed a Palestinian. Then they resumed.
I've answered your question to the best of my ability, now you answer mine:
If Israel didn't want Hamas to fire rockets at them, what did they expect would happen when they killed a Palestinian?
How could Israel expect peace with Hamas when they blockaded Gaza?
Norman, you didn't really engage with the emotional part of my question, which is what I will try to recapitulate here. Supposing your account of events to be true, and a Palestinian was killed, would you apply the law of an eye for an eye and have a Jew killed as well?
Brad,
No, I don't believe in an eye for an eye.
I don't believe that, if a Palestinian was killed, a Jew should be killed too.
I would follow the example of Dr. Izzeldin Abu el-Aish. After his three daughters and his niece were killed by Israeli tank fire, he said that what he wanted was for no more children to be killed, Israeli or Palestinian.
Nor do I believe that, when a Jew is killed, a Palestinian should be killed. I believe that's especially wrong when the Israeli army retaliates for the killing of six Jews with the killing of hundreds of Palestinians. Bisharat quoted Israeli generals and politicians saying that their response would be "disproportionate." I believe that's wrong -- and it's a crime under international law. (That's why Israeli generals can't travel to Europe.)
In addition to being wrong and illegal, it escalates the situation, and leads to killing more Jews. Netanyahu's policies are responsible for the deaths of more Jews.
I've answered your questions, now you tell me:
If Israel didn't want Hamas to fire rockets at them, what did they expect would happen when they killed a Palestinian?
How could Israel expect peace with Hamas when they blockaded Gaza?
Aside from all the factual and legal errors in the thread above, and the general oddness of the article to which the thread responds, it is very surprising to read the question, "If Israel didn't want Hamas to fire rockets at them, what did they expect would happen when they killed a Palestinian?", from someone who purports to discuss public international law. An eye for eye is certainly not a principle of that body of law.
The withdrawl from Gaza was a deliberate attempt to scuttle any chance for peace. Israel must always be able to claim that there is nobody to negotiate with. In order to accomplish this "No Peace Partner" scenario, we now can expect Israel to insult, harass, intimidate Palestinians, and to increase settlement activities and evictions.
Israel is asking the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish State and not simply the state of Israel. (A Jewish State where non-Jews are second class citizens.)
And, how can anyone recognize an Israeli state when Israel refuses to indicate it's borders? Are the borders at the 1967 line?
"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process" "And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress." "The disengagement is actually formaldehyde." "It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians." "....In the fall of 2003 we understood that everything was stuck. And although by the way the Americans read the situation, the blame fell on the Palestinians, not on us, Arik [Sharon] grasped that this state of affairs could not last, that they wouldn't leave us alone, wouldn't get off our case. Time was not on our side. There was international erosion, internal erosion. Domestically, in the meantime, everything was collapsing. The economy was stagnant, and the Geneva Initiative had gained broad support. And then we were hit with the letters of officers and letters of pilots and letters of commandos [refusing to serve in the territories]. These were not weird kids with green ponytails and a ring in their nose with a strong odor of grass. These were people like Spector's group [Yiftah Spector, a renowned Air Force pilot who signed the pilot's letter]. Really our finest young people." Weisglass does not deny that the main achievement of the Gaza plan is the freezing of the peace process in a "legitimate manner." "That is exactly what happened," he said. "You know, the term `peace process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen.... what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did." By Ari Shavit October 06, 2004 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=485491
I read the report and indeed it boils down to intent. But that makes it very dangerous for no one in the world has seen it in any other light and for that reason condemned Iron Cast. I fear that Israel's defensive psychology seems to compel it to express disdain and to affirm that we are all "dumb goyim," given the low grade hasbara it uses to argue its case-- even in a legal document-- before us. That may be its undoing and I can only pray that the pragmatic modesty of Netanyahu will spread far enough in Israel to give him room to pull that mess out of disaster with an Israeli-Palestinian solution.
Norman, you didn't fully answer my questions, although the best I can say in response to yours is that: (a) Israel blockaded Gaza only after the Gazans started firing rockets at southern Israel, in order to block the supply of military equipment, and (b) your assertion that Israel deserved to be attacked because it had "killed a Palestinian" is at odds with what you say about El-Aish's approach to the conflict.
I had asked you about 9/11 as well as about Palestinian attacks on Israel. Presumably you do not think that the United States deserved to have been attacked, and you do not think that al-Qaeda's methods are justified. In that case, if you would not set up a moral equivalency between the United States and an Islamist organization, why would you set up a moral equivalence between Israel and an Islamist organization? Israeli civilians are also the object of Hamas attacks.
Also, you did not answer my question about empathy. You state that you don't think that an Israeli should be killed if a Palestinian is killed, but that you also think that no Palestinian should be killed if an Israeli is killed. But presumably you value the lives of your family members over the lives of strangers. Do you acknowledge a familial tie between yourself and other Jews, or do you think that this tie counts for nothing?
Norman:To say that Israel is commiting "war crimes," that Hamas is given the right to retaliate against Israel's defensive attacks under the UN Charter,that Israel broke a truce on Nov.4,that Israel intentionally attacked civilian institutions,eg.,mosques,courts, universities,etc.,that Israel still controls borders,air space, and coast,and finally is guilty of war crimes is a pretty long list of charges.My question for you is the following: What did Israel do to have been sujected to your characterizations?The UN is no arbiter of Israel's action of self-defense,for it has abdicated much of its moral standing by being indifferent to the murder of millions by the actions of many Arab,Asian and African nations, while condemning the defensive policies of the Jewish State.Your views are unconscionable,lack any legal standing and are merely parroting the propaganda of those who would joyfully celebrate the destruction of Israel.For example,the actions of Israel against Hamas in the war earlier this year was finally acted upon after the Jewish State endured nearly 5 years of unrestrained missle attacks against civilian areas.About 6500 missles fell upon Israel with occassional retaliation by the IDF.That far fewer Israelis were killed and injured than Palestinians was not due to any conscious effort on the part of the latter to minimize them.Indeed,Hamas' suicide bombings were more effective in causing casualties.The so-called disproportionate response by Israel is utter nonsense.Defense of your civilians requires maximizing the punishment against those who want to destroy your nation.That is one effort which the Israelis have gotten good at by being subject to many wars of attempted extermination by their Arab neighbors since well before 1948.
Brad,
(a) In my understanding, the Israeli government blockaded Gaza in the way I described immediately after they left Gaza. Gaza never had open borders to Egypt and the sea, and the Israelis never allowed air travel. The blockade goes far beyond military equipment -- they don't even allow hospital supplies. (b) I never said that Israel "deserved" to be attacked.
As Bisharat and others point out, Hamas has repeatedly stopped attacks on Israel, and Israel has repeatedly responded by killing Palestinians.
I don't think it's *right* for Hamas to kill Israelis indiscriminately with rockets in return, but the Israeli government knew well that Hamas *would* kill Israelis indiscriminately with rockets in return. Both sides were wrong, but that's what happens.
In terms of pragmatic military and political results, the Israelis knew that if they wanted peace, they wouldn't kill Palestinians. If they wanted Hamas to resume firing rockets, they could kill Palestinians.
So it seems that the Israeli government deliberately provoked Hamas into firing rockets, and killing Jews, for political reasons.
Yes, I'm setting up a moral equivalency between Jews and Palestinians. I judge them both by the standard of international law.
No, I don't believe that Jewish lives are more important than non-Jewish lives. Dr. el-Aish doesn't value Palestinian lives more than Jewish lives.
My tie is to the people who follow Jewish principles -- that which is hateful to you, do not do unto others. Those people are part of my community, whether they're Jewish, Arab, German or whatever. Dr. el-Aish is part of that community.
I don't have any tie to the tank driver who killed Dr. el-Aish's daughters. He's not part of my big family.
Moshe,
All your questions are answered in the two articles by Professor Bisharat that I linked to.
There will never be peace between Israel and the Palestinians until Europe accepts its historic responsibility for starting the conflict in the first place and agrees to compensate the Palestinian refugee population as part of a final settlement.
Remember that at the end of Oslo all outstanding issues had been settled except the problem of the refugees and what to do with them. If they had been promised a Western standard of living in a future Palestinian state (or in whatever state they eventually decided to settle in)there is a chance that the Oslo agreement might have received broad popular support. As it was there was little in it for the Palestinian man in the street.
Unfortunately the European community thus far has shown little inclination to accept this responsibility despite an especially tender concern for the plight of the Palestinians vis-a-vis the Israelis.
Is Europe's bias in favor of the Palestinians the projection of a guilty conscience perhaps, a guilty conscience which it is reluctant to admit even to itself? I do not know.
But I do know that there is only one country in Europe that has fully acknowledged its anti-Semitic past and therefore has the moral standing to prod its neighbors to do the same.
If anyone doesn't know which country that is contact me by email and I will tell you: luke.lea@gmail.com
Norman,
As I see it, the major sticking point with you is that you seem to think that Judaism can be reduced to a set of principles. But you still have not addressed the point of how you can justify preserving the lives of family members over those of strangers. (I mean your immediate family, not the tank driver whom you single out.) If there is no objective principle according to which you can do this, then neither can Judaism be reduced to a set of principles, because otherwise there is no reason to remain Jewish rather than become a Christian.
I would favor the lives of my immediate family over the lives of strangers, for the same evolutionary biology reasons that J.B.S. Haldane was getting at when he said, "I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins". I don't know what you're getting at with that.
Judaism can be reduced to one principle: That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others.
You haven't answered my question, so I'll answer it for you:
When Peres blockaded Gaza, and killed Palestinians (which was illegal), Israel wasn't defending itself. They were deliberately provoking Hamas into firing rockets (which was also illegal), which everybody knew Hamas would do. Peres did it for political advantage, even though it would sabotage peace. Under any realistic peace, the Israeli government would have to eventually evacuate the settlements, and no government, Labor or Likud, has been willing to pay the political costs for that. Peres attacked Hamas for political advantage, at the cost of Jewish lives. So there was no justification to invade Gaza.
lbnaz,
If you had facts and logic to support your position, you wouldn't have to stoop to profanity, insults and personal attacks, which reflect on you rather than on your targets, and which violate the Forward rules at the bottom that "all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles."
Gal Beckerman is a journalist who has worked for major publications including the Jerusalem Post. What are your credentials? Do you think you understand international law better than he does? Do you even know what it means to get both sides of the story?
If Forward readers follow your link, they'll find an opinionated three-paragraph "synopsis" of the report, with a link to the report itself.
We don't need a "synopsis" of the report. The report itself begins with an executive summary. Beckerman already linked to the report in this article. So your blog link doesn't add anything to the discussion here. You're late to the party.
Norman -
Are you always so careless with your facts? The link to my blog leads to a 9,000 word analysis. I have no doubt you'll disagree with it, as I dasgree with you, but the best starting point for a discussion should usually be the facts. Israel was not blockading Gaza in Spetember 2005, no matter what your impression is, and my link isn't to three paragraphs. As for the rest, I'm not going to argue with you. that would serve no purpose.
Yaacov Lozowick
No, it doesn't link to a 9,000 word analysis. http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2009/08/israels-incursion-to-gaza-official.html
Even if it did, why should I plow through 9,000 words of ruminations, personal opinions and amateur hasbara by some anonymous blogger?
Well Norman, you have an odd PC. I've gotten lots of responses from people who have read the analysis.
Annonymous? I think not. I'm using my full name, here and on my blog. Not something you can say, can you. The blog says who I am, but you don't need to believe it. You can google me, and you'll see who I am, some of what I've done in life, and why I actually may be qualified to speak on the matter. We don't know any of this about you, because you don't identify yourself.
Anyway, that's all beside the point. Say I was an annonymous 12-year-old in Kamtchatka who has something valuable to say: would it be any less valuable for that reason? You seem to be insinuating that the value of people's comment is the result of their position. Thus, Gal Beckerman, being a journalist who has worked here there and elsewhere must be worth listening to, but a mere blogger must not be.
I agree with you, if that's what you're saying, that people who voice their opinions often and loudly, can eventually acquie a reputation as more or less serious; but even then, I'd hazard, it might be better to disagree with them on the weakness of their positions and statements, not their reputation.
And not, I'd add, their identity.
Since I've got your attention, you might wish to re-examine your story about how Israel broke the cease fire with Hamas in November 2008. I'd suggest you start by re-visiting the details of the story, and see if you can figure out the background to the deaths of the Palestinians in November: who exactly were they, what were they doing at the time of their passing, that sort of thing. You might find this to be relevant. Then, once you've finished with November, you might want to re-visit the events of December, and see what the position of Hamas was around, let's say, December 19th or so.
As for your version of August 2005-February 2006: you've got some serious re-examiniig to do there.
Yaacov Lozowick
sorry, I have no idea why that appeared 3 times. I only hit "post comment" once. hopefully this will only appear once.
Does the Israel report mention the Nov. 4 action? On a brief look, I didn't see a mention. Seems very different than this earlier document:
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e011.htm -------------------------------------- "During the first five months of the arrangement the Palestinian terrorist organizations generally did not carry out terrorist attacks and the IDF has avoided operating within the Gaza Strip." Hamas and the other terrorist organizations have exploited the quiet created by the lull to continue their military buildup and prepare themselves for “the morning after.”
2. The events which threaten the lull arrangement and cast a question mark over its validity began on November 4. Following information about Hamas's preparations to abduct IDF soldiers through a tunnel, the IDF operated near the border. The operation prevented the planned attack and killed seven Hamas terrorist operatives. Hamas reacted with massive rocket and mortar shell fire, unprecedented since the lull arrangement went into effect. --------------------------------------
Some more detail on that action is here: http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2008/102-2008.html
Further to some of Norman's points, it's worth taking a look a look at Zeev Maoz's Defending the Holy Land, or his recent article Evaluating Israel's Strategy of Low-Intensity Warfare, 1949-2006 (Security Studies, July 2007) ------------------------------------- On five separate occasions during the Al Aqsa Intifada Israel deliber- ately violated an implicit cease-fire with the Palestinians by targeted assassinations of Palestinians: (1) the December 2000 assassination of Dr. Thabet Ahmed Thabet in Tulkarm; (2) the December 2001 assassination of Ra’ad Carmi in Tulkarm; (2) the July 2002 assassination of Salah Shehadeh in Gaza; (3) a wave of assassinations in Gaza during the May–July Hudnah period of 2003; (4) the assassination of Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-aziz Rantissi in March-April 2004. In each case, the Palestinian responded with several suicide bombings, inducing in turn large-scale Israeli attacks on Palestinian cities, mass arrests, and long curfews in the occupied territories. None of these measures served to reduce Palestinian violence. -------------------------------------
As an aside, it is a bit hard to take seriously Israel's alleged concern over civilian victims when they littered South Lebanon with cluster bombs (thanks to the U.S.) in the last three days of the war and then spent nearly three years refusing to turn over the strike data that might have helped the demining efforts. It might be an interesting thing if the numbers of Lebanese civilians and deminers who were killed and injured were given as much attention as Israeli victims of Hamas rockets.
Norman, you say:
"I would favor the lives of my immediate family over the lives of strangers, for the same evolutionary biology reasons that J.B.S. Haldane was getting at when he said, 'I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.'"
I don't care what someone I never heard of said; I want to hear your own thoughts in your own words. The rationale you gave me for why you would save your mother's life rather than another's strikes me as false. You are proposing that we do what we do for self-interested reasons. But if we have an interest in preserving our family members over others, then we cannot claim objectivity when it comes to preserving one heritage (our own) over another. This means that Judaism cannot be reduced to a principle, and that the quote from Hillel must be seen in its Jewish context. Otherwise, if you would say that what you want is objectivity from someone else, as in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you would be obliged to surrender your preference for your own faith in relation to another, because it is subjective of you to prefer it.
When I say you must take Hillel's quote in context, what I mean is that, for example, many scholars point out that this is not the whole quote. A stranger comes to Hillel and asks if he can reduce the whole Torah to one principle while staning on one foot. Hillel says, "What is hateful to you, do not do to others. The rest is commentary. Now go, study!" In other words, he is exhorting the stranger to study Torah, and perhaps to become fascinated with Judaism and convert. Hillel is not exhorting the stranger to be objective; he is exhorting him to study one specific relgion, Judaism, which he (Hillel) prefers over others (i.e., Hillel was not objective in this matter, and therefore neither can the quote, taken out of context, be viewed as an objective lens, a single "principle," through which to view Judaism).
If you studied physics, and you calculated that the weight of the earth was 3.6 pounds, your teacher would tell you that you made a mistake and to go back and find the mistake in your calculations.
Anyone who killed Dr. Izzeldin Abu el-Aish's daughters is a monster, and anybody who defends their killing is a monster. If you think that you can justify it under Jewish law, or any law, you should go back and find your mistake.
Norman -
Glad to see you're still here, even if you never responded to me.
Every single legal system you'd care to live under will sometimes justify the killing of innocent children in some contexts. No system will rejoice in such killings, except for the Nazi one, the Communist ones, the Islamist ones, and a whole series of other ones, but as I said, you wouldn't want to live under them. The ones you do live under, however, do justify such kilings in some contexts. International law, too.
Beyond which, your statement opens a whole plethora of extremely unsavory lines of thought. Yesterday we demonstrated that you are careless with facts and may prefer identity over truth. Today we see that you're not a careful thinker; you allow yourself to make careless statements without thinking through their implications. Maybe this is because you're hiding your identity, and so can say whatever you want with no possible accountability.
If I were you, I'd either come out in the open and accept the potential opprobrium of my positions, or I'd keep them to myself.
Yaacov Lozowick
Norman, I am not so much defending the killing of Palestinian innocents as defending the lives of Jewish innocents. I think I can justify it under Jewish law, as it is written, "If someone comes to kill you, kill him first."
Yaacov,
After your profanity and insults, I am ignoring you.
When war and other various changes are taking place in our world, some think that G-D sports with the affairs of men.....and others, that everything is directed by the blind violence of forune.....
VERY few are ...aware....that these things are ----appointed and regulated----by the purpose of G-D!
There is nothing of which it is more difficult to convince mankind that the providence of G-D governs the world.......
For it is written,,,,Isaiah 1406-407.......all might understand that those calamities did not take place but by the secret and wounderful purpose of G-D,
The superscription , echoing the formaula. NO nation, NO man, NO woman, NO child can annul the plan of G-D or turn back the hand, then or now.
Here and now there is indeed "a time to weep" and a time to laugh, but nevertheless mankind has no clue about their time.